Monday, February 28, 2011

I spent a good portion of my weekend (when I wasn't marching up and down the square) thinking about maps. Cartographic love runs deep in many old-time rpgers and I am certainly no exception. In fact the powerful draw of maps preceded my entry into the hobby and maintained itself even for the two decades I was out.

Where does that power come from? What features of a great map make it great?

Let's take it apart.

A great map provides both a cerebral and visceral experience. A great map doesn't just tell your brain the necessary practical facts to help run a game—like how many hexes it is from Nyrond to Rauxes—it hits you in the gut too. It evokes a feeling or mood, the fleeting sensation of a world that might have existed.

There was some back and forth in the comments on Saturday's post about how hand drawn (and hand inked as Scott Pasha added) tend to be more powerful than even beautifully done computer-generated ones. My guess at the why is that a hand-drawn map creates more of an illusion that a map is a product of the world it represents.

A computer-drawn map talks to your head. It's precise, a useful tool to help you effectively run a junket through the wilderness—but it misses that gut pull completely.

Feel the difference in the two following maps of Harn.

Great map:

Good map (but missing something right?):

A great map tells a story about it's setting. It visually pulls out elements that are critical to that setting and influences what is important to a reader.

Each of those five maps I listed on Saturday immediately told me something about the setting before I even cracked open a related gazetteer.

Church's maps graphically highlight features that seem imbued with myth and mystery—hallmarks of Glorantha. What is that gigantic monolithic block rising three-dimensionally from the page? Why is there a swamp pooled at it's base?

The flowing alien-seeming Tsolyani script and symbolic on-map caricatures of deities instantly transport a viewer to the exotic environs of Tekumel. Skeletal Sarku leers from the City of the Dead. (Sadly this is only of these maps that uses the kinds of depictions of people, monsters, ships, etc. common on medieval and ancient maps to build mood.)

The eye-catching prominence of tracts of wilderness in Darlene's Greyhawk maps jump off the page. Long stretches of dark-green heavy boreal forest and heavy black ice made me instantly want to know what this Blackmoor was. How wouldn't see the jagged bands of thick chocolate-brown mountain peaks surrounding the Valley of the Mage and want to immediately pack up some mules to investigate?

A great map uses color and negative space to contrast elements. Notice in Darlene's map how the wide, green spaces that make up each nation make for a subtle contrast with those wilderness areas I mention above. There are no heavy border lines just beautiful terrain brackets.

Though Church's Prax map is black and white, it's lack of color is almost a virtue because of it's effective use of white space and his shading detail for terrain features.

A great map uses fonts that are appropriately sized and chosen for feel. Map text doesn't dominate any of those five maps. We have all seen those maps where text virtually clutters the whole thing for a busy, busy mess that exhausts you just looking at it.

Contrast this recent Dragon Pass map with Church's to get a sense of the defining differences to both those features above.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Rob, the protagonist of High Fidelity, claims early in the novel that you can judge the character of person by their responses to Top Five lists. Such lists are part of the stock trade for lazy day blogging. Who am I to resist the call?

What are your Top Five? I promise not to judge. Much.

In reverse order:

5. Dying Earth RPG maps by Sarah Wroot. The color and skill of these maps thrill me. They are some great whimsical touches on the street level maps of Kaiin that at times sell me on the Vancian feel more than the RPG itself.

4. Bey Su city map from Empire of the Petal Throne by M.A.R. Barker. It wasn't until my second time around in Tekumel fandom that I realized that the cover of EPT was a map by the professor himself. Bonus immersion points for a map more symbolic than geographically accurate (if anything what most maps drawn in our dreamworlds would look like to the inhabitants themselves).

3. William Church's Prax map from Runequest II (the first one that is). No other map captivated me into wanting to know more about a setting than this one (remember that the details of Glorantha were pretty sketchy for those of us who had only that rulebook as an intro).

2. William Church again sweeping the list with the map from Dragon Pass. OK this is a bit of a cheat since it's technically from a boardgame of Glorantha, otherwise I'd be tempted to put it in #1. Click to enbiggen to get the full effect.

1. Ah, the all-time classic and nostalgic favorite, Darlene's map of Greyhawk. Other kids had posters of Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders and ferraris, I had this one up on my wall—where it reigned for four years until a Black Flag poster came along to kick it off.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Suggestions by readers yesterday uncovered some visually stunning pieces, some of which are highly likely to grace the pages of the Domain Game source books.

Thanks to the modern online wonders of the public domain you can check out not only some of the images of some of these works, but download the books that carry them (thanks to The Drune for the tip-off). You can download a scanned copy of the drop-dead gorgeous 1906 edition of Carl Otto Czeschka's Die Nibelungenhere on my own download website . Nisbet's Cossack Fairy Tales can be found here on Gutenberg.

First stop on our recap tour, more of the Chinese woodcuts I am fond of:

Next over to the chilly northlands with Carl Larsson's Midvinterblot:

The Durer piece that Irbyz pointed too here:

Wilhelm Dittmer's Te Tohunga:

Two of our old school artist/readers, Stephan Poag and Johnathan Bingham, also have interesting spin-off threads about artistic inspiration worth checking out here and here.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Inspired by The Drune's recent efforts on his Humanspace Tekumel project, I started putting together this morning (before real-life work) all the random charts, notes, maps, play examples, sketches, and draft guidelines for the Domain Game into a semblance of a skeleton for the proposed domain-play source books.

One thing I would like to start early with is working with artists for a better integrated finished product. As a readerI love products that have a strong, united aesthetic vision. Experience working with photographers, graphic designers, graph-makers, I have in droves from years as a managing editor, but frankly zippo when it comes to gaming material and fantasy art.

Let me back up a little and give you an idea of what I see as the cover and interior work. In my mind's eye I would like to see a full color cover with a heavy touch of Ivan Bilibin, the Art Noveau Russian folk artist whose work appears above and here, here, and here on the blog).

The interior will be pretty text heavy, but with woodcut-looking borders and old public-domain clip art (like this pictured below).

I would love to see the interior artwork be page or half-paged sized bold black and white woodcut looking things something like the work of these Chinese artists.

Any suggestions on how best to achieves these goals—and for particular artists to approach--are greatly appreciated as always. Alternative visions for what look you would fit better for this project are welcome too. I am an open-minded sort after all.

(I should mention since I haven't on the blog to date that the sourcebooks are intended to be sold, printed products—but strictly not-for-profit. All profits after production costs—which includes paying artists a fair amount—will be donated to the nascent Pulp Fantasy Society.)

Sweet screamin' Orlanth! A seemingly never-ending menu of choices I found once I opened the lid on this thing.

So for a casual, on-again/off-again lover of RQ2 and Glorantha--who tends toward the older school, lighter end of rules--what do kindly folks out there suggest and why? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each? What's crap and what's gold?

I find myself coming back time and time again to mucking around with the weapons chart. Usually it is attached to some inexplicable tinkering urge, this time it's a product of the extensive equipment lists I have been putting together for the Domain Game (which will be presented sometime this week).

Notes on the chart:

Urban cost is within 30 miles of a city or town. Rural is outside that range. All prices are in gold unless otherwise noted.

All weight is in pounds.

Str/Dex is the minimum Strength and Dexterity to wield the weapon. If these requirements are not met -2 to hit (fighters -1).

Monday, February 21, 2011

Requests to join the action in the Domain Game to my surprise keep coming in. Typically I have been holding seats for newcomers for the second phase of the game come mid-March--when we will likely “fast forward” the various colonizing attempts of Nowhere a few years so that we can test “layer three” of the proposed source book(s).

My brain, however, may be too restless to just simply stick to that plan (though rest assured the current game will continue on to the next phase) . A number of experimental ideas keeping gnawing at me, wanting to get out. One thing I have been awfully curious about is how “portable” this experience is to the more traditional team-based environment of the tabletop.

Never one to resist just jumping straight into the water, I would like to propose the following scenario for four motivated and any number of part-time/drop-in players:

The four main players will take the roles of Tetrarchs, four co-rulers who guide a small kingdom on another side of the continent of Nowhere from the current action. This realm will have preceded the current players' expeditions by about 10 years and will be clued into a layer deeper of the world's mysteries (which of course unlocks even more mysteries).

Part-time/drop-in players will play the parts of important characters a few rungs lower in the hierarchy. These characters will be controlled by myself as NPCs when the player is absent.

The central arena of play will be a monthly Skype-based session—though any player can have machinations moderated by email in between. The Skype sessions will likely be either Saturdays or Sundays at 6:00 pm Central US time (that's -6 GMT to everyone else).

I will be setting up a yahoo group for the Domain Game. This will be open to ANYONE interested in the project, but membership for communication purposes is really necessary for players in this part of the experiment.

If you are interested in signing on as a player for this experiment, drop me a line at: kutalik at gmail dot com.

A major theme that has developed on this blog is that of the beauty--and yes, fun--of a shared world-building experience. Invariably when talking about Tekumel or Glorantha is the comparison of those world's broad, expansive visions to that of Tolkien.

But what those observers often don't get, or at least state, is that the nature of gaming in a world, even ones that have fine level of detail courtesy courtesy of a single creator and final authority, invariably makes that world a collective experience. Hundreds of Tekumels and Gloranthas have existed in varying degrees of canonical imitation.

What I find most interesting about our recent exploration of the German-Austrian worldgame Magira is that since 1966 this world has allowed thousands of participants a chance to build a corner of that world—and as you will see in this following (pun somewhat intended) interview a chance to fight for your collectively-shared nation in that open world.

Thanks to the recent articles here on Magira I received some great and helpful responses from German readers. One of them was from a long-time participant in the fantasy society that founded Magira, the Fellowship of the Lords of the Lands of Wonder (FOLLOW). His “character name” in Magira is Dhokaj.

Hill Cantons:Can you tell me about the history of FOLLOW? How did it start? What were the society's goals?

Dhokaj: FOLLOW was founded in 1966 by Hubert Strassl (aka Hugh Walker), Eduard Lukschandl, and Axel Melhard. They wanted to create a club about fantasy literature (which was practically non-existent in Germany at that time).

They also had the idea of a structure that resembled medieval European society with its nobles and knights. They wanted to have a hierarchy in which you could rise by being active (writing stories, etc.)

Therefore they founded “Clans” that represented realms, nations or civilizations. Each Clan had a “Lord” or a “Lady” who was the leader of the clan (the top of the hierarchy) and a crest, normally with an animal as a symbol.

HC: How did Magira start? When and how did Armageddon and other games begin?

D: The first Armageddon boardgame took place in 1968. This marks the beginning of the world Magira and of the Ewiges Spiel, the “Eternal Game”, that is still being played today. They needed a game plan and created the Old World of Magira (the one you posted in your blog) as a hex map for that purpose.

So Magira is a fantasy world that contains the civilizations that are represented by the Clans. Each Clan has the right to take part in the Eternal Game to defend its territory or to wage war on others.

Each member of a clan represents a personality of the people that is simulated by their clan. But this is not a role playing approach in the form of rules. It is more a literary approach, so the personalities could be a slave on a galley, a mighty demon or a skilled bard–this depends on the clan you're in.

An assault on the Citadel of the Gods in Armageddon

HC:Who is involved with FOLLOW and Magira in current years? What kinds of activities do you do?

D: At the moment Follow is made up of 78 clans but not all of them are active and not all of them are taking part in the eternal game. But the Eternal Game is still being played once a year for three days and what is played is the basis for the political structure and the historical development of the world Magira.

There are roughly 400 to 500 fellows (members of FOLLOW) and the clans range from 1 to 40 members.

The activities cover a very wide range from playing Armageddon to creating costumes, writing stories, composing and performing music, role playing and so on.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Today we have a special treat, an interview with David Dunham, the leading light behind the Glorantha -based computer game King of Dragon Pass.

Released in 1999 the award-winning game continues to be highly regarded by many rpgers for its immersive gameplay and gorgeous hand-painted scenes. I myself believe it to be the single, best introduction to Glorantha for newcomers.

Look for a follow-up post here analyzing some of the game's strengths and what we can take away from it in our tabletop game.

Hill Cantons: Let's start with introductions. How would we best introduce you? As the owner of A Sharp and lead programmer of King of Dragon Pass?

David Dunham: I was producer, lead designer, and a programmer for King of Dragon Pass. That meant I was responsible for finding a team of very talented people to help design, create, and test the game.

It turned out that A Sharp published the game as well, which meant I got to make packaging decisions and do the marketing. Sadly, marketing is not something I'd call a strength.

HC: You have some background as a fan of Glorantha. Your related PenDragon Pass variant rules I found personally very interesting. What was your connection to that setting?

DD: My first exposure to Glorantha was actually in the late 1970s, with the board game White Bear & Red Moon. I didn't really appreciate it as a setting until I began playing a RuneQuest game in 1980.

One of the advantages of the tabletop RPG hobby is that it's very easy to get involved as a creator. I wrote for various magazines, which I think is how I first ended up corresponding with Greg Stafford, the creator of Glorantha. Greg also created Pendragon, an elegant RPG that featured saga-style play: a campaign was intended to span many game years, and involve the children of the original player characters. PenDragon Pass was my attempt to bring that style of game to Glorantha. The multi-year nature of the game seemed to fit well with the resettlement of Dragon Pass.

My original campaign was cut short before the multi-generation nature came into play. Years later I got to play in Jeff Richard's “Taming of Dragon Pass” campaign, which used the PenDragon Pass rules. It lasted long enough for many of the characters to die heroically so that their children could live, and we continued as children of the heroes.

After KoDP, I was asked to do art direction for the Hero Wars and HeroQuest product lines (those being the Robin Laws game rules designed for Glorantha).

I haven't played continuously in Glorantha, but it's such a deep setting that I keep coming back to it. Usually I explore time periods or geographies that aren't the core setting. (My notes for a Second Age game were passed on and used as part of the background for Mongoose's RuneQuest.)

HC: How did KoDP come into being? Who was driving it and what were the goals? And how did all that beautiful artwork take shape?

Greg Stafford and I were corresponding, and both of us seemed to be on the same page as far as what we'd like to see in a computer game. He was amenable to licensing, and realized the different needs of a computer game, compared to an rpg. A number of things then fell together, and I was able to get Robin Laws as writer and Elise Bowditch as Associate Producer and multimedia developer.

There were three main goals. The first was to do a storytelling game--this seemed like a relatively unexplored area of computer games. I'd really liked what Scott Bennie did in Castles, but I thought it hadn't gone nearly far enough. Second, I wanted to create a game that, like an Icelandic saga, spanned generations. And third, set it in the amazingly rich world of Glorantha. Which again suggested the resettlement of Dragon Pass.

As I said, I was driving the vision. In particular, I need to create a shared vision, since Elise and I were working out of our house, and planned to hire contractors. I made mockups of some of the game screens, and found an artist to do better renditions of them. As we found additional artists, one of the first projects was to create a style guide. What did the Orlanthi look like? Would we be able to distinguish them from Orlanthi from elsewhere?

One of the consequences of using Glorantha was that I wanted to include heroquesting, which is not only cool but a distinctive feature. So I wanted an art style that made it obvious you were in the word of myth. We ended up picking Mike Raabe, whose portfolio included Magic: The Gathering cards that had the right look.

The bulk of the game was planned for a graphic novel style of art--high quality, but something that could be produced relatively quickly (since so much art was involved). We ended up going with Stefano Gaudiano, who'd worked in that business, and who also knew a team of pencillers and colorists.

Finally, the game also portrayed the distant past, as well as the future. For that third art style we used Damon Brown. His woodcut style art was obviously different from the other two.

Basic art direction ("a guy on a horse threatens two thralls") usually came from Robin Laws, sometimes from me. I'd polish it, and turn it over to Stefano Gaudiano, who would come back with a quick thumbnail (often using an artist who was really good at layout). Elise Bowditch and I would review these.

Rarely we'd send one back, but usually they only needed minor changes, and Stefano or one of his artists could make a pencil sketch. Elise and I again reviewed these, then Stefano would ink them and give them to a colorist. He'd then add additional detail, and scanned them and made minor tweaks in Photoshop. The process was similar with Mike Raabe and Damon Brown, though Mike did his own colors.

HC:Why did you want to revive KoDP as a smart phone game? Where is that project at currently?

DD:King of Dragon Pass came out in 1999, and while it's still possible to play it today, the Windows and Mac machines of today can have a harder time running it than when it was new. I was also looking for an iPhone project I could do for a reasonable budget. That beautiful artwork was the biggest cost for the original game, but it was already paid for. And 2/3 of the game code could be reused with only minimal modification.

All I'd need to do was rewrite the user interface code...

That took longer than expected, which in retrospect shouldn't be surprising since it was the bulk of what Elise did for nearly three years. On the one hand, it was easier, since there was already a working model. On the other, a lot of it needed to be reworked for the small screen. I worked with Jani Lintunen on this.

I also wanted to make some improvements to the game, since I've learned both from KoDP and eight years at GameHouse. And selling in today's market pretty much requires some sort of social connection (Twitter, Facebook, Game Center).

At the moment, the UI work is complete (other than adding a list to the in-event raid dialog). I'm still finishing up the new work. Once that's done, the game will need testing before it can be released. I'm afraid I can't give a specific timetable, but you can watch the progress at our development blog or follow @KingDragonPass on Twitter or ASharpLLC on Facebook (did I mention the social connection?).

Friday, February 18, 2011

More offerings from the Domain Game today. (I have a surprise for the upcoming King of Dragon Pass post.)

Today I give you the early draft form of the comprehensive hireling and followers list I have been working on. The list is long (over 120 professions at this point) and somewhat involved—we're getting into spreadsheet territory now—so if you are interested boogie over to my sister HC site and download the file marked “labor costs”.

I can really use some input here (pretty please) as I am aiming for a nice and full set of options capable of covering periods ranging from Antiquity to the Early Renaissance for the source book. So any suggestions no matter how arcane, fantastic, historically-specific, or wacky are appreciated.

Also you may notice my deflation of expert and craft hirelings wage costs, a departure point from most editions of D&D classic or not. Definitely let me know if you think this is potentially workable in your own home campaigns as I was aiming for a balance between something close to historical (or at least internally logical) wage rates and compatibility with the rates as presented in the game.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Work still continues on the King of Dragon Pass post. Reinstalling the durn thing on my hard drive proved to be a foolish, foolish mistake. Fired up a game last night and several hours went poof. (There is a reason I eschew computer games for tabletops ones in the past five years.)

As penance, I am sharing another freebie subsystem from the Domain Game, in this case guidelines for attracting denizens to your newly-carved lands.

Note that I still want to add a few things to these guidelines notably some ways to model attracting more urban types (craftsmen, merchants, clergy, and the like), rural un-landed workers (fishers, foresters, cottars, prospectors, etc.), and “out-of-the-box” emigres (demi-humans, non-humans, nomads, etc.).

Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?

Colonists

Colonists are attracted to your realm by the promise of free or cheap land. Colonists work their own land and provide their own means, thus the player-lord has no direct obligation to house, feed, and pay them as they do for their retainers, hirelings, and followers.

Every three months a call can be issued to a friendly adjoining civilized area. With each seasonal call, the player can grant and settle up to 1d6 square miles of arable land (+1 can be added for 200 gp spent on advertizing and inducements).

Granted or purchased land must be reasonably secured (regular patrols and no outstanding monsters or other threats) subject to the GM's ruling.

*Any emigrating family can be substituted for a family of tenant farmer if desired.

Modifiers:

-8 extreme conditions

-3 harsh climatic conditions or poor soil

-2 land has been secured less than a year

-1 below average soil

+1 good soil or other pleasant terrain conditions

+1 land has been secured more than five years

+2 extremely fertile soil

Tenant Farmers

Free farming family that works a leased grant of 40 acres in exchange for farming work, militia service, and taxes. Typical family will be five with three working bodies that are available to work the landowner's seeding and harvest. The household will provide one unarmored combatant with club, dagger, or other makeshift weapon.

Freeholders

Free farming family of five that works a purchased grant of 40 acres. In an emergency situation, the household will provide one combatant with leather armor and a bow, spear, or other culturally-specific weapon.

Military colonists

Family headed by soldier/mercenary/warrior that works a leased grant of 40 acres in exchange for militia service. The household will provide one combatant with ring or scale armor and a polearm—or equivalent culturally-specific weapon and armor.

Gentry

Wealthy, but not titled landholder that purchases 120 acres. One family of five with 12 servants. In an emergency situation, the household will provide one mounted warrior with chainmail, shield, sword and lance—or equivalent culturally-specific weapon and armor—and three unarmored combatants with club, dagger, or other makeshift weapon.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Smart phone-owning fans of Runequest (and successor's) home setting, Glorantha, are in for a treat. Programmers are busy putting the final touches on a Iphone and Ipod Touch compatible port of the classic 1999 roleplaying/strategy computer game, King of Dragon Pass.

The app is slated to be released in “early 2011”. You can check on progress yourself at the project's blog here.

I will be sitting down and writing a longer post tomorrow about the game's rich, imaginative game play—and what we tabletop rpgers can learn from it when expanding our own domain-level play.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Housing is not the only thing that the Domain Game expeditions are hurriedly throwing their energy into, the all-important task of hustling enough food out of the land to survive and thrive is another central arena.

Below are some more domain-play rule guidelines for handling foraging and farming. The agriculture rules will undoubtedly gain a good deal more detail as I expand the list of available crops beyond the simple grains modeled below.

These guidelines like yesterday's construction rules are a work in progress. Feedback is appreciated.

Hunting and Gathering

Hunting and gathering can be a short-term fix for the food problem. A full-time hunter/gatherer can maximally sustain 4-16 individuals (including himself). The rate varies according to the abundance of game and other wild foodstuffs in a hex—and the skill and technology of the hunter.

Things to keep in mind with this activity:

That you can only sustain a relatively small group of individuals in a locale. Thirty individuals for each adjacent five-mile hex of the hunting grounds. (Thus if you had a base camp area that hex and available hunting grounds in the surrounding six hexes could sustain up to 210 people in that area).

The maximum rates are adjusted by season and climatic events. Game and other forage will be difficult in winter in cold climes or scarcer in a dry season in a more tropical one.

Hunting at the maximum rate is not sustainable over time. Over several months of this activity the area you will have chances of declining yields due to over-hunting.

This being a fantasy rpg there is always a chance that your hunters will encounter creatures other than what they are hunting out in the field.

However, not all land in a hex is arable. The GM will determine the number of square miles that are tillable in each hex (medieval manors had about 20-40% of available land under cultivation).

An average harvest of the “Big Three” mixed grains (wheat, barley, and rye) will support—after re-devoting seed back into the land—the equivalent of 186 people for a year. The harvest can also be converted into 4,480 bushels or 9,672 food/weeks for game purposes.

A minimum of 40 laborers is necessary to have a decent harvest, 64 is optimum. Throwing on more workers will improve yields up to a point.

Monday, February 14, 2011

We are well into the second month in the great blank-slate world of Nowhere, and Domain Game players are busy taming—or being tamed by—this brave new world. While cyclopean ruins, mysterious golden barges, vast metal domes, white-furred apes, and other oddities have beguiled the expeditions from Elsewhere, they are making a go at the more prosaic job of settling into their new dominions.

Everywhere is the sound of hammers, saws, and the rest of the general din of construction. Ziggurats, longhouses, towers, stockades, mud huts are slowly and surely being raised in this howling wilderness.

And as goes the flurry activity so go the gnomes behind the scenes working to ensure the smooth flow of the natural laws of the new world—that is the in-game mechanics for the larger rules supplement project.

For the rest of you we give you this today: construction rules for your classical D&D game. For the full version including road construction, underground excavation, and all the lovely modifiers that give you that fine crunch you can find it here as part of the revised rules guidelines (including some other rules for would-be overlords).

Construction

To build a structure:

the type of structure(s) to be built

The number of ten-foot square cubes to be built of that structure

Number of workers assigned

Where the materials are to come from etc.

Example: Margrave von Schadenfreude wants to have 50 followers start working on five small one-story wooden cottages that are 10 feet by 30 feet (3 cubes).

Since the Margrave's project is in a wilderness area, he will direct another group of his followers to harvest the needed materials directly. Thatch from the grasslands will be used and timber cut from the adjacent light woods.

Total labor time for the project is 480 worker/days (15 cubes x 32, the base-rate for an average wooden structure). Since he has 50 workers on the project it will take them 9.6 days (480 divided by 50) to complete building the cottages–barring any delays.

Baseline Cost and Time

All work based on 10'x10' “cubes”. All prices applicable if structure is in a borderlands or civilized hex. Substitute gp equivalent amount of materials for wilderness area.

Any building over two cubes must have at least one semi-skilled worker for eight cubes. Any building over 24 cubes, must have an engineer or architect assigned for every 48 cubes.

Material

Price per Cube

Construction Time

Primitive

10 gp

25 worker/days

Mudbrick

20 gp

30 worker/days

Wooden

30 gp

32 worker/days

Brick

110 gp

90 worker/days

Stone

140 gp

160 worker/days

Quality level

Building is assumed to come with basic furnishings, roofing, and flooring appropriate to the quality level. Additional or unusual furnishings must be purchased separately.

Cheap

75% price/time

Average

100% price/time

Comfortable

150% price/time

Semi-Fortified

200% price/time

Luxurious

250% price/time

Fortified

300% price/time

Vertical building

Second-story building is free. Add 25% to the cost for each additional story.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Unfortunately nearly all meaty information for things Magira and Midgard is in German. For all us hapless non-German speakers—hey, if it was in Spanish, Czech, or Slovak I would have it already covered—I am working on getting some translations up in the following month or two.

Big thanks to the kindly folks who have already stepped forward to help—we can always use more.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Magira is a complicated multi-layered business. First created as an open-world fantasy experiment in the 60s by the German-Austrian fantasy society FOLLOW (Fellowship of the Lords of the Lands of Wonder), it remains running in a diminished form to this day. Magira has been built in the imaginations of its thousands of participants in a crazy-quilt variety of ways: miniatures/board hybrid games like Armageddon, play-by-mail games, collective fiction, LARPs, costume play, and, yes, tabletop rpgs.

Indeed, I had read several times over that the worldgame didn't just spawn an entry into German-language role-playing, it spawned the first commercially-available German pen-and-paper rpg game. Arriving in 1981 as a thick 216-page manual, Midgard has chugged along up to the present through four editions. Like many second-generation American fantasy rpgs of that era the game has been described as evolving from a variant D&D into an increasingly more complicated system.

I had also read a few times in passing that M.A.R. Barker's Tekumel had had some influence on the Magira experiment and always assumed that this influence was in the world-building department. Much of the world's collective identity had been created by it's many players who had assumed commanding positions in the various player-founded imaginary nations. Most of these nations had stand-ins to real-world equivalents and like Barker, the influences of India and China prevailed over western European.

I was wrong.

Actually I was wrong twice over in my assumptions. I was wrong about Midgard being the first German rpg. Midgard's author, Jürgen Franke, it seems had released a small-circulation set of rules titled Empires of Magira in 1978 that should be awarded that distinction.

Turns out I was wrong too about Barker's influence. Empires of Magira wasn't just influenced by Empire of the Petal Throne's world-building, it was EPT. Literally.

At first glance, parsing through the garbling of a Google translation it looked to me like Franke had adopted a few rules from EPT here and there--percentile-based attributes, spell names, torch-bearing slaves, “eyes”, etc.--maybe even lifted a few Sutherland illustrations (see the EOM pages right).

Noticing the handful of rule section numbers and their corresponding themes, I compared them to the original EPT rulebook. Sure enough they were all direct matches. In fact, Franke didn't even bother to translate into German certain English terms like "hit dice" and "damage dice".

Interestingly, Midgard (which separated itself from Magira in 1987) looks like it contains trace elements of its EPT origins, such as percentile attributes, to this day.

And that my friends is at least part of the story about how EPT wasn't just the first link in the chain of English-language Tekumel games, but helped spawn a lasting line of games on the other side of the pond.

A big hearty thank you to Irbyz/Harami/David for his yeoman's work in digging up this (and other) stuff in the first place.